Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The Magic Question of Self-Referential MetaphysicsYou can count these stones on one hand.Memorize the following:1 What2 about3 that4 statement5 ITSELF?The whole point of having you memorize that question is so that when you are exposed to general universal claims about knowledge, truth, or reality, you will think about what the implications are for that view itself.A friend memorized that question, had a eureka moment, it blew his mind, and it changed his life.Here's a few expanded versions of the question:Is that statement itself merely the product of the factors it cites as fully explaining or determining everything?Is that statement ITSELF relative, subjective, economically determined, socially determined, psychologically determined, genetically determined, environmentally determined, evolutionarily determined, illusion, maya, bs, meaningless, stated only because of the speaker's or writer's background, or due solely to some combination of explanatory or determining factors?Or is that statement itself getting its own free ride past scrutiny?Memorizing at least the first of these key questions is your ticket to developing a thoroughly rational metaphysic without having to read a lot of books, online essays and discussions, journal articles, and so on.I'm doing all that dirty work, remember? In fact, what I'm telling you now is part of the result of my reading and analyzing all those sources so that you can benefit from it without having to pick-and-shovel your way to these insights for decades of your life like I did.Let me do that for you. I will anyway.Here are the benefits of memorizing the 5-word question and a few others that make up the basis of self-referential metaphysics:Less to learnDeepest level of analysis possibleFaster-shorter path to conclusionsVirtually none of the typical obstaclesOpposing arguments build your case for youA few simple inference tracing principles are all you needSystemic universal methods of refutationNo more haphazard struggling with first-order objectionsWorks with all self-referring viewsWhat's not to love? Memorize now!(Image credit: lightwise / 123RF Stock Photo)